Master of Chess News

The most exciting batch of changes for Master of Chess is done!

Yes, there's still a lot more work to be done, but I'm getting there and I have a feeling that the hardest things are behind me now. Due to amount of changes, there's a high possibility of bugs. Please report them on Discord or in community 🙏.

I plan to release the game out from Early Access in couple of months. What's the biggest problem you have with the game? What's missing? Let me know so I can get it in before the 1.0.0 release!



I've covered all the bigger changes in previous blogs so I'll just go out and list out all the changes I've remembered to record.

[h2]🛠️ Fixes & Improvements[/h2]

• Fix AI logic on recaptures
  
• Fix negamax crash
  
• Fix bug with puzzles and progress points
  
• Fix issue with female title tooltips
  
• Fix issue with puzzle coach explanations
  
• Fix message icon for tournaments starting
  
• Fix bug with turning sound off
  
• Fix bugs with progress screen progress assignment
  
• Improve draw offer criteria
  

[h2]➕ Features & Additions[/h2]

• Allow saving mid-game
  
• Add coaches
  
• Add openings
  
• Add auto-save after a game
  
• Add tutorials for new features
  
• Add translations
  

[h2]🎮 Gameplay & Logic[/h2]

• Return entry fee on tournament withdrawal
  
• Improve AI consideration for recapture
  

[h2]🎨 UI/UX & Design[/h2]

• UX improvements
  
• Player Details modal
  
• Font consolidation
  
• Some UI changes
  

[h2]🔊 Audio[/h2]

• SFX (sound effects)
  

[h3]What's next[/h3]

One thing I've learned through these past months is that I enjoy much more to have the updates in smaller batches and delivered faster. I'll do my best to keep the update cadence better in upcoming months.

One thing to note is that I've been spending time helping a friend to release his detective game. Please wishlist it here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2797960/Confidential_Killings/

Heya! Master of Chess is on sale in the Sport-acular event. Exciting stuff!

It's always cool when the game gets into a Steam festival as it increases the amount of traffic the Steam page gets. And hey, it's 20% off!

In other news: I'm couple weeks off from releasing the new version, 0.8.x.

[h2]Latest development[/h2]

I worked a lot on the openings. I'm quite happy with the direction it is going in. The most often requested features are already there: separated black and white repertoires, priority lines that are played through in the Key Moments simulation and more believable NPC opening play.



[h2]Opening proficiency[/h2]

Modelling realistic opening knowledge isn't straightforward. One of the problems I hope I'll solve better in the future.

For now, I've added proficiency levels for different lines. I've called it Line Knowledge as proficiency sounds too smart-ass. You use your book points to improve the line knowledge and this allows you to expand your opening line deeper and deeper. The deeper you go the more book points it requires.

It's easier to understand with a picture. So here it goes (stil WIP):



The given player has deep knowledge of queen and king pawn openings. So if line knowledge is 10, the player can build his opening graph as much as he wants as long as he isn't going more than 10 moves deep. You choose your primary lines in the graph and they are selected in Key Moment simulation!

[h2]Missing pieces[/h2]

Next step in my Openings Redo attempt is to get the NPCs to have some sort of opening preferences. I've done a lot of work around this topic but I would always fall short. I'm falling short for now as well but I at least can see light at the end of the tunnel (if I don't get to it soon I'll just cut it short 😊)

Lastly, I'm implementing a window in which you can see more details about the opponent. It was often requested and makes total sense. Sometimes you want to see your historical score against a specific opponent. This is very close to being done.

Ideally, this window would also contain information about opening preferences of the NPC, but I might cut that out as well. Obviously a lot of things depend on me handling the previous step successfully 😀

[h2]The end[/h2]

I plan to release the game out of Early Access in the summer. It's so close now!

I've been working on this project for almost 3 years now. It's incredible. I've learned so much and I hope to apply it when I make a second instalment of this chess career simulation game in couple of years. But for now it's all about making Master of Chess the best it could be.

If you have ideas and suggestions, join my discord to tell me about it:
https://discord.gg/HYV8Zz8V2Q


Cheers!

What's a chess player without a coach, eh?



I'm wrapping up this feature. I wanted to share the news. It ended up a lot bigger and better than I imagined. It was considerably harder to implement as well so it's only fair that I'm quite happy with how it turned out.

It's going to come to beta branch soon. Join the Discord if you have any question or just want to chat with us: https://discord.gg/HYV8Zz8V2Q

What makes me happiest is that Jonathan Schrantz allowed me to use his name and likeness as one of the coaches. His videos on the Saint Louis Chess Youtube channel that I watched 10ish years ago provided me with chess knowledge to achieve the greatest feat I could imagine: beating my dad at chess.

[h3]What's so cool about it?[/h3]

...I hear you ask. Say no more! There's 2 new training modes:

• Positional Analysis (5k of them)
  
• Studies (472 of them)
  

Both bring a new dynamic to the game. While positional analysis allows you to sharpen your intuition and decide the objective evaluation of given positions; studies are quite more hands-on and make you play out a position to its maximum potential: be it a draw, retaining advantage or checkmating your opponent.



If your eyebrow is raised disapprovingly now, don't worry - your choice of coach allows you to switch up which training modes you get. Every coach has a different training regiment and every month you're allowed to pick your training.

[h2]What's next[/h2]

I'll release this feature to the beta branch quite soon. Meanwhile, I'm testing it and starting work (again) on my nemesis - Openings feature. Yes, it's in the game now, but we all know it's not up to the task. It doesn't synergize with the rest of the game. A lot of reviews mention it as a problem - rightfully so.

But giving it justice isn't easy as I thought. I've had 2 attempts already and gave up. This time I've planned it out better. Third time's the charm!

Some smaller fixes are coming as well:

• In game save (adjournment)
  
• Smaller game size as I've reduced the DB size considerably
  
• Fix some crashes with the chess engine search
  
• Improve draw offer criteria
  
• Small AI improvement around recapturing
  

And many smaller fixes I've not been smart enough to record. So that's what's up. I've been working considerably slower these past few months, but I think I'm getting back into the groove.

Hope you'll have a lovely month!

BRANE

We have ourselves a new world chess champion. A new year has arrived. Master of Chess is in its final year of active development. Exciting stuff!

Did I mention that I've already added a DB editor in the game? It can be accessed on the beta branch! (and you can try mid-game adjournment save as well!)



[h2]What's the plan?[/h2]

There's two big parts of MoC I'm working on adding next:

• 🧑‍🏫 Coaches
  
• 📘Openings integration
  

It will probably take me month or two more to deliver these. This will be a big content update and propel the price of the game to $19.99.

After that I plan to spend couple more months optimizing, adding QOL features and small improvements all around. This means that I should be done with active development of the game in Q3!

Seems surreal that this game I started as a small project on the side would become this huge game that I work on for 3 years. Time well spent!

[h2]Coaches[/h2]

Inside Personal screen a new button is added: 🧑‍🏫Coaches.
There's about 5 coaches offered on that screen. The first and automatically assigned one is Uncle Rob.

The others are there for hire and are only available when certain requirements are met:

• You have enough money to pay them at least for a month
  
• You have enough Elo to satisfy the level they require from their pupils
  

Every coach has different training regiment. Trainings can happen weekly, bi-weekly or monthly.

Every coach has minimum Elo requirement from his pupil, but likewise, every coach provides limited Skill Points to the pupil if player's Elo rating is greater than the range the Coach is capable of teaching.

Lets take Uncle Rob as an example. He teaches beginners and has no requirement for minimum Elo rating. But, if you happen to bring your Elo above 1800, every training session provides you with limited skill points, regardless of how well you solved his puzzles.

This pushes the player to start paying for a better coach, and finally provides some real meaning to acquiring money in the game.

[h3]Training variety[/h3]

As far as training goes, having only tactics doesn't offer much variety.

I also wanted to add studies as training methods of higher-end coaches. A rook and a king vs king? A queen and king vs bishop and a king? Two bishops and a king vs a king? You get the idea. There's many endgame studies that could be generated and some of them could be really difficult. One could imagine I could also figure out the optimal number of moves the study could be solved in and deduct Skill points for each move you go over it. Slightly cruel, but what's cruel if not chess?

Another more simpler and faster training method is: you get a random position that's +3 or -5 and you have to figure out who is better. It could also have more granular approach where you have to give numerical value and closer you are to the score the more Skill points you get.


[h3]Coaches and openings[/h3]

Many people rightfully criticize the Openings system in the game. I'm still working on proper design for it. Coaches should ideally factor into this too. Simplest approach would be to link amount of Book points your player gets with the quality of the coach. Because more depth in opening knowledge is needed as your player improves, there would be exponential growth in book points, not linear as it is now.

Of course it would need some rethinking as the design of Openings crystallizes but I think it's a valid approach. The whole Openings will be less about tedious creation of graphs and more numerically driven.

[h2]Conclusion[/h2]

It's been an exciting year. The best year of my life. It's time to give it my all to try and have a better one. Cheers!

🚀 0.7.7 is released!

🇵🇱 Fix crash when playing the Polish opening.
🎯 Improve UX of scrolling moves in the game review screen.
👑 Fix stalemate incorrectly counting as checkmate.
🤔 Fix issue with checkmate moves being marked as blunders in reviews.
💾 Improve UX for saving games.
📜 Fix player history not updating in real time.
🔑 Make the checkmate move in Key Moment simulations a key moment.